ntop – network traffic probe

ntop is a network traffic probe that shows the network usage, similar to what the popular top Unix command does. It has a NetFlow/sFlow emitter/collector, an HTTP-based client interface for creating ntop-centric monitoring applications, and RRD for persistently storing traffic statistics.

ntop has been designed to be simple, performant and easy to use. It has been developed, tested, and deployed by a large user community on various networks and environments.

ntop can use a web browser (e.g. Firefox) to navigate through ntop (that acts as a web server) traffic information and get a dump of the network status. In the latter case, ntop can be seen as a simple RMON-like agent with an embedded web interface.

Features include:

• Sort network traffic according to many protocols.
• Show network traffic sorted according to various criteria.
• Display traffic statistics.
• Store on disk persistent traffic statistics in RRD format.
• Identify the identity (e.g. email address) of computer users.
• Passively (i.e. without sending probe packets) identify the host OS.
• Show IP traffic distribution among the various protocols.
• Analyse IP traffic and sort it according to the source/destination.
• Display IP Traffic Subnet matrix (who’s talking to who?)
• Report IP protocol usage sorted by protocol type.
• Act as a NetFlow/sFlow collector for flows generated by routers (e.g. Cisco and Juniper) or switches (e.g. Foundry Networks).
• Produce RMON-like network traffic statistics.
• VoIP support (SIP, Cisco SCCP and Asterisk IAX).
• NetFlow (including v5 and v9) and IPFIX support.
• Network Flows.
• Local Traffic Analysis.
• Multithread and MP (MultiProcessor) support on both Unix and Win32.
• Perl/PHP/Python lightweight API for accessing ntop from remote.
• Support of both NetFlow andsFlow as flow collector. ntop can collect simultaneously from multiple probes.
• Traffic statistics are saved into RRD databases for long-run traffic analysis.
• Internet Domain, AS (Autonomous Systems), VLAN (Virtual LAN) Statistics.
• Network assets discovery and categorization according to their OS and users.
• Protocol decoders for most of known P2P (Peer to Peer) protocols.
• Advanced ‘per user’ HTTP password protection with encrypted passwords.
• RRD support for persistently storing per-host traffic information.
• Passive remote host fingerprint (Courtesy of ettercap).
• HTTPS (Secure HTTP via OpenSSL).
• Virtual/multiple network interfaces support.
• Graphical Charts (via gdchart).
• WAP support.

Website: www.ntop.org
Support: ntopng
Developer: Luca Deri
License: GNU General Public License

ntop is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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